Good News Comes in Strange Packages
by GoldenRoya
Summary: Post series: Hermione winds up in the hospital, where a Weasley Product divulges some startling news.


_Yes! My name is JK Rowling and I DO own Harry Potter! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! *gets dragged away in a strait jacket* _

_Uh... yeah, no. None of these are mine. Nor do I have any rights to the medical paraphernalia (very roughly described, oi) herein. _

_Also of note, I've never been in a British hospital, much less a _magical_ British hospital, so I have no idea how they do things across the pond. Descriptions of St. Mungo's emergency department based on my own (thankfully very limited) experience of American ER's._

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* * *

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**Good News Comes in Strange Packages**

The two newly wedded couples (as George persisted in calling them, even though Ron and Hermione had been married for nearly a year before Harry and Ginny), were enjoying a lovely day by the seaside.

"Ron, I'm going to kill you!"

"Not if I kill him first!"

"He's my brother!"

"He's _my_ husband; I get first dibs!"

The women were, to put it mildly, not happy.

Harry pressed his back to the boulder he and his best friend were currently sheltering behind. "Way to go, mate."

The redhead glared at him. "Don't you start on me, too."

"Duck!" Hermione cried.

The two men covered their heads as a spray of pebbles – which had, until moments ago, been solid rock – rained down on their heads.

"I'm just saying, if Ginny takes it into her head to blame _me_ over this, I can guarantee you that you won't be the only one in that dog house."

Ron grinned. "'S not so bad, actually. I've enlarged it nicely. And you can barely even smell the dog anymore."

Harry shot him a frown that was belied by the sparkle in his eyes.

"Harry! Catch!"

The dark haired man thrust up his hand just in time to snatch his falling wand. "Thanks, babe!" he called up to Ginny. The red haired witch shot by overhead, the tail of her broomstick smoking slightly.

"Huh," Ron muttered. "Didn't think harpies could breathe fire."

Ignoring this, Harry glanced at his friend. "Ready?"

"Aren't I always?"

The pair burst out of concealment, firing spells every which way. Miraculously, they all seemed to miss Ginny as she went cruising around at high speed, drawing the hideously ugly bird-human hybrids out of their cave. The harpies were definitely catching the worst of it. Harry nailed one with a skillful Freezing Charm; it went plummeting into a second one, bearing both monsters to the ground.

"_Stupefy!_" Ron's spell caught the last one, but not in time to stop it from using a high frequency sonic blast to shatter another boulder, sending rock fragments raining on the combatants below.

A scream rent the air.

"Hermione!" Ron bellowed, throwing himself heedlessly under the falling shower of rock. "_Dissendium!_"

The waterfall of debris sent up a choking cloud of dust. "Ron, Hermione!" Harry ran forward, coughing and stumbling. "Ron! Hermione!"

"Here! Hurry!"

The avalanche had parted around them, leaving heaps of stones piled to either side. Ron was crouched over his wife, who had fallen to the ground.

"She's not breathing!" Ron sounded panicked.

Harry pointed his wand at his friend. "_Anapneo! Anapneo_!"

With a gasp, Hermione pulled in a deep breath, coughing hard. "...Ron? I don't... I don't feel so well..."

"Hermione? Hermione!"

"Harry?"

"Ginny!"

The two embraced briefly before turning to their sister in law.

Ron's face was white as he clutched her fainting form to his chest. "We need to get her to St. Mungo's."

* * *

They were rushed into a waiting room.

Where they waited.

And waited.

_Aaaaand_ waited.

Finally, a blonde healer bustled in. "Sorry for the wait, folks; been crazy out there. It's Snapdragon season again, worse than ever this year. We've been fielding a lot of really nasty bites. Anyway. My name is Healer Pulse. What brings you in here, ah... Mrs. Weasley?" He looked up from his chart, his eyes zeroing in on Ron's red hair. "Weasley? Really? Any relation to George Weasley?"

"My - Ouch, Ginny! _Our_ brother." He corrected himself as he rubbed his bruised ribs.

Pulse's eyes went wide. "Oh, wow! I can't believe this! A Weasley, a real, live Weasley!" He pumped Ron's hand wildly. "Oh, it's an honor, a real honor, sir! Think you could maybe swing me an autograph? I don't even have to meet the man, but just something that he touched..."

Ron rescued his hand, slightly mystified. "Uh, sure, I guess..."

"Really?" The man's eyes lit up. "That would be awesome!"

Ignoring Harry's frantic negating gestures, Ginny bridled a bit. "Maybe if you ask nicely, my husband, _Harry Potter_, might be able to sign something for you, too!"

But the healer declined. "No, no, I wouldn't dream of imposing on him. But a real _George Weasley_ autograph, now _that's_ a treasure! No offence meant, sir."

Harry blinked back his astonishment. Usually he had to beat off his adoring public with a stick - and he'd thought it had been bad in _school_ - but Healer Pulse didn't seem to think a thing about having the most famous wizard in the world in his exam room. And to be fixated on _George_, of all people? He tried not to feel vexed. "None taken."

Ginny's mouth twisted up like a lemon. Harry couldn't help but think that she was maybe a little unused to his sudden lack of renown. "Maybe you could see my sister-in-law now?"

"Of course, of course," Pulse said, turning, at last, to Hermione. "What brings you in today, hun?"

Hermione, looking much better than she had when they'd first come stumbling into the magical hospital, told the story.

"It was _supposed_ to be a nice day. Then my _darling_ husband here," Ron winced at her emphasis of the word; it implied that he would be in the doghouse for far longer than the one night, "decided he wanted a closer look at some oddly shaped stones at the top of a cliff. Turned out to be a harpy nest."

"I told you flinging those rocks was a bad idea," Harry muttered, _sotto voce_, to his best friend. Healer Pulse winced.

"Everything was fine until after the avalanche," Hermione summed up. "Then I started feeling weak and nauseous, and Ron insisted on bringing me here."

"Alright," the healer replied. "Why don't you climb up on the exam table and we'll see what's what."

He helped Hermione onto the transparent couch that was floating in the middle of the room. The muggle-born witch's face lit up with surprise. "Why, it's _comfortable!_" she exclaimed.

"Of course," Pulse stated. "Why, you didn't expect us to make our patients sit on something so barbaric as _metal_, did you?"

"No," hedged Hermione. "More like cold vinyl and paper."

"_Paper?_" The three pure-bloods in the room were shocked. "What-on-earth-good would _that_ do?"

"Never mind," Ron cut in, having regained his composure. "Just tell us what's wrong with her."

Harry started to grin at the inadvertent straight-line, but caught Ginny's glare and stifled it immediately. Ron may have made _his_ dog house into the lap of luxury, but Ginny made Harry sleep on the roof when she got mad. And she wasn't above conjuring a little thunderstorm when she was goaded.

Pulse set his glasses on the desk and donned a pair of green-tinted goggles. "SuperVisors," he explained to the puzzled stares. "Like those things muggle children send in cardboard stamps for, what are they, x-ray vision glasses? Only these really work. Let's the wearer look within and see what's going on inside the body." He spun a dial on the side. "Adjustable depth, calibrated to gaze through anything but lead - curious that, lead seems to repel the charm for some reason - and completely harmless to the view_ee _and the view_er_. Another fine product of Weasley Medical Supplies."

"What?" Four voices rose in unison.

Two magnified eyes blinked at them through the lenses. "You're Weasleys and you didn't know? Why, George Weasley is one of the finest inventive minds this century has yet produced! We use his products all the time here at St. Mungo's; the SuperVisors are only one of his fine products. His candies line is invaluable for giving young witches and wizards medicine. The bruise ointment is spectacular stuff, and I hear he's working on something similar for burns. And this little baby," he said, pulling a curious-looking, bifurcated, flesh-colored string from the cupboard and smiling at it, fondly.

Harry peered at it. It looked... oddly familiar, somehow. "Hey, Ron," he said, realization dawning. "Isn't that...?"

"Yeah, mate, I think it is..."

"Super Audible Modified Extendible Ears," Healer Pulse declared proudly. "SAMEE for short. Put these ends in your ears," he demonstrated, sticking the Y-ends in his own ears, "and let the ear bit do its thing."

The attached ear came to life, traveling of its own volition over Hermione while Pulse kept up a running commentary on the many uses and benefits of WMS products. "...saved a lot of lives, they have. I tell you, I just can't _believe_ that George Weasley is wasting his time on a joke shop! If he would devote all his time and brainpower to his medical line, he could very well advance magical medicine incalculable years into the future! I'm serious, he is a true genius." The healer stared off into the distance, a look of bliss on his face.

"For example," Pulse continued, just as Harry started to hope that he was through. He and George were going to have a long talk when they got home; the older man had gotten entirely too secretive since the war. "For example, these SAMEE's here? Powerful enough to pick up the beat of a fetal heart a full _seventeen days_ before a pregnancy spell is determined to be accurate. Seventeen days! Can you believe it? I mean, here, listen."

All of a sudden, Ron went pale. He was staring at the Extendible Ear - the end that Pulse was holding out to him... and the other end. The one that had pressed itself against Hermione's belly.

Her eyes met his, round with shock. "F-fetal heartbeat?" she asked, stunned.

"Uh-huh," said the oblivious Pulse. "Try the SuperVisors if you don't believe me; not much to see yet, but definitely something there." He pulled off the goggles and offered them around. Everybody was too stunned to react. "Well, if you're not interested..." he grumbled.

There was a sudden shout as Ron and Hermione both scrambled for the medical devices.

Ginny took the staring Harry and Healer Pulse by the arms and led them gently out of the room. "Men," she mumbled under her breath. "No sense of when people need to be alone..."

* * *

Some minutes later, after they'd gotten over their initial shock and were starting to absorb the good news, Hermione kissed Ron. "Oh, this is wonderful! What are we going to name her?"

"Could be a boy," said the blitzed redhead.

"Could be a girl," his wife countered.

"Could be a girl..." He blinked, clearing his head. "Oh, Merlin!" he groaned, clutching his head.

Hermione frowned. "What?"

From the safe cage of his arms, Ron moaned. "You remember how Mum reacted to Bill and Fleur's pregnancy announcement last year?"

"Yeah..."

"Now Mum has an extra _whole month_ to start getting excited!"

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Uhm... Maybe we should sit on this for awhile. You know. Just to make sure."

"Right... right... It's George's product. Might be defective. Or a joke. Yeah, it's probably a joke."

"Confirmed by two separate devices... in a hospital setting...

"Yeah... a joke..." But Ron took her hand and kissed it, and they both knew that neither of them believed it.

They shared another loving kiss, resting their foreheads against one another. Staring deep into his eyes, Hermione whispered, "Ron?"

"Yeah, babe?"

She gave him a slow grin. "You're still spending the night in the dog house."


End file.
